Written Answers Tuesday 7 April 2009

Scottish Executive

Agriculture

Murdo Fraser (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what grants are available to farmers to support the storage of malting barley.

Richard Lochhead: Farmers can apply for funding to support the provision of storage facilities for cereals, including malting barley, from the food processing, marketing and co-operation grant scheme and through rural priorities.

Alcohol

Richard Baker (North East Scotland) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of findings in Alcohol and Violence among Young Male Offenders in Scotland (1979-2009), published in 2009, that prisoners questioned felt that increasing the prices of cheaper alcohol products would not reduce consumption but encourage the consumption of stronger alcohol products, what its assessment is of these findings and what action it intends to take.

Kenny MacAskill: Our document Changing Scotland’s Relationship with Alcohol: A Framework for Action (Bib. number 47805) sets out a package of measures to rebalance Scotland’s relationship with alcohol. Some actions are specific legislative measures designed to effect change in the short term and others focus on creating cultural change over the longer term. The price of alcohol needs to form part of this package as there is strong evidence to show that the consumption of alcohol is affected by price.

  Various studies have been carried out on the effects of product switching if the price of alcohol is increased. There is strong evidence to show that increasing the price of alcohol reduces overall consumption, even taking into account product switching.

Alcohol

Richard Baker (North East Scotland) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the finding in Alcohol and Violence among Young Male Offenders in Scotland (1979-2009), published in January 2009, that suggested that a prohibitive price increase to alcohol products would foster an illegal market, perhaps with alcohol drinkers turning to illegal drug use and illegal drug dealers turning to alcohol sales, what its assessment is of this finding and what action it intends to take.

Kenny MacAskill: Our detailed proposals for minimum pricing will be proportionate, reasonable and effective, not prohibitive.

Animal Welfare

Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the incidence of bovine tuberculosis is increasing in Scotland.

Mr Richard Lochhead: Scotland continues to have a relatively low and stable incidence of bovine tuberculosis.

  The percentage of bovine herds confirmed as infected with tuberculosis, where infection cannot be attributed to "introduced infection", has not exceeded 0.1% of all herds for the last six consecutive years, and at least 99.9% of herds have achieved officially tuberculosis-free status during each of those six consecutive years.

Animal Welfare

Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to tackle bovine tuberculosis.

Richard Lochhead: A review of the animal health and welfare strategy in 2004 resulted in the Government developing a 10-year framework strategy for dealing with TB in cattle. Central to controlling the disease, is the programme of routine skin testing and compulsory slaughter of test reactors (with compensation).

  Routine testing of bovine herds in Scotland is conducted every four years except for herds assessed as being higher risk (e.g. dealer’s herds and those with a regular intake of cattle from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) when skin testing is conducted annually.

  Slaughterhouse surveillance is also important in facilitating post-mortem examination, especially of younger beef cattle.

  Additional controls are in place to protect and enhance Scotland’s health status and minimise the risks from introduced infection. These include:

  Pre and post movement testing of all cattle from "high incidence" areas of Great Britain (yearly and two yearly testing areas) moving to Scotland.

  Pre and post movement testing of cattle imported into Scotland from other non-officially tuberculosis free EU member states and other parts of the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and Channel Islands).

  Gamma interferon testing - gamma interferon testing has been applied to all cattle over six weeks of age on holdings identified as new confirmed breakdowns since October 2006. The intention is to eradicate any new confirmed outbreak as quickly as possible.

  Zero tolerance of overdue tests - herd owners are automatically placed under movement restrictions if their routine TB test is not completed on time.

Animal Welfare

Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it is considering trialling the inoculation of badgers to prevent the spread of tuberculosis to cattle.

Richard Lochhead: There is no evidence to date to suggest that there is a significant reservoir of bovine tuberculosis infection in the badger population in Scotland. Current veterinary advice is that wildlife in Scotland does not represent a significant risk in terms of the spread to cattle of bovine tuberculosis.

Environment

Jamie McGrigor (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what assessment it has made of the adopt a highway anti-litter initiative that runs in countries such as the United States of America and Canada and whether it considers that such an approach would help address the problem of litter in Scotland and, if so, whether it plans to introduce such an initiative.

Richard Lochhead: Litter clearance on the major roads in Scotland remains the responsibility of either Transport Scotland or local authorities. Transport Scotland, through its operating companies, is responsible for clearing litter on the motorway network and special roads, while local authorities are responsible for keeping most trunk roads clear of litter.

  It is for these bodies to decide how roadside cleaning should be carried out, taking into account a number of issues such as traffic management and the health and safety of those people carrying out the work. It is extremely important to make sure that when roadside cleaning is carried out, neither road users nor those people cleaning the roads are placed at any risk or danger. I am afraid that for this reason the Scottish Government does not believe the "adopt-a-highway" model is suitable for major roads in Scotland.

  However, I would draw your attention to the Aberdeenshire Litter initiative. This is a voluntary community based initiative set up in mid-2007 to tackle litter and littering across Aberdeenshire. A number of volunteers have signed up through the initiative to "Adopt-a-Street" and help keep their designated street litter free.

  This initiative has the full support of the environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful and offers a model that could be used for community groups across Scotland who wish to help keep quieter roads litter free.

Environment

Dave Thompson (Highlands and Islands) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the 2008 woodfuel demand and usage data published by Forestry Commission Scotland, what assessment has been made of the impact on current and future supply to the wood processing industries.

Roseanna Cunningham: The Wood Fuel Task Force reported to the Minister for Environment last year. Its report indicated that there are substantial additional supplies of woody biomass available in Scotland. Much of this would not be suitable for existing wood processing markets. In the light of this, it is not felt necessary, at the present time, to assess the impact on current and future supply to the wood processing industries.

Environment

Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will list the number of respondents to each of the consultations carried out in December 2006 and May 2008 respectively on the transposition of the EU environmental liability directive into Scots law showing how many of those respondents were (a) in favour, (b) not in favour or (c) made no mention of sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) and Ramsar sites being included in the scope of the directive’s application.

Roseanna Cunningham: This information may be found in the Summary of Responses for each of the public consultation exercises published by the Scottish Government at:

  http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/203481/0054256.pdf

  http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/244256/0068289.pdf.

Housing

Tom McCabe (Hamilton South) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S3W-16605 by Stewart Maxwell on 9 October 2008, whether it will extend the 12-week validity period for home reports in light of the current conditions in the housing market.

Alex Neil: The only 12 week period mentioned in the home report legislation relates to the maximum age of the home report documents on the day a house is marketed or their "vintage" Regulation 6 of The Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 (Prescribed Documents) Regulations 2008 requires that when the house is put on the market, the home report documents must be no more than 12 weeks old.

  However, the legislation does not prescribe a "shelf-life" or validity period for the home report. The Scottish Government has been advised by industry professionals that in practice, it will usually be the buyer or their lender who drives the issue as to whether the survey or valuation remains valid after a period of time. Currently, most lenders consider 12 weeks to be an appropriate validity period, which is the same as it was under the previous house buying and selling system.

  Should the survey or valuation require to be refreshed, it will not involve a repeated or additional survey every 12 weeks. It will usually involve a simple re-inspection towards the end of the transaction to establish whether anything in the original survey report needs to be amended. A competitive market for Home Reports will determine the fee for this service in the new system but the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has estimated a likely cost of about £80, which ties up with our understanding of what refreshing a survey has cost in the past. This is not an £80 charge every 12 weeks, but rather a one-off fee incurred towards the end of the sale process.

  The Scottish Government will undertake an interim review of the home report after 12 months of operation and will take on board any refinements that are required to improve its implementation.

Livestock

Peter Peacock (Highlands and Islands) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many cattle there were in the Highlands and Islands in each of the last five years.

Richard Lochhead: Total cattle numbers in the Highlands and Islands for 2004-2008 are given in the following table:

  

 Year
 Total Cattle


 2004
 252,747


 2005
 251,244


 2006
 245,098


 2007
 238,969


 2008
 233,732



  Source: Scottish June Agricultural and Horticultural Census.

Livestock

Peter Peacock (Highlands and Islands) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what concerns it has regarding the decline in cattle numbers in the Highlands and Islands and what implications the decline has for the infrastructure that supports cattle breeding in the area.

Richard Lochhead: The Scottish Government shares the industry’s concerns about the difficulties facing not only cattle farmers, but livestock farmers and crofters generally in the Highlands and Islands. Maintaining livestock production is important, both in its own right and because it provides employment, supports downstream businesses and maintains and enhances the environment, which in turn helps other nationally important industries, such as tourism. The Scottish Government supports livestock farming in the Highlands and Islands via a number of support schemes, including Single Farm Payment, Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS), Crofting Counties Agricultural Grant Scheme and other parts of the Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP). The Government is currently reviewing the SRDP and LFASS, and the impact of any changes on livestock farming in the Highlands and Islands is one of the factors that will be taken into account.

Planning

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive whether allegations of unreasonable delay, incompetence or unfairness of any kind by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in the handling of applications from Aviemore resort hotels were made to ministers or civil servants and, if so, who made the allegations and on what dates, whether any evidence supported the allegations and what steps were taken to ensure that incorrect allegations were refuted.

Ms Roseanna Cunningham: Several Members of the Scottish Parliament and a member of the United Kingdom Parliament expressed concern to Scottish Ministers between 6 and 11 December 2007 about the handling of Aviemore Highland Resort’s planning applications suggesting that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) might be responsible for delaying matters. The Environment Minister discussed these concerns with the Chief Executive of SEPA to satisfy himself that SEPA was not unnecessarily delaying the applications. The First Minister subsequently wrote to several of these Members to reassure them that SEPA was handling the applications as promptly as possible.

Young Offenders

Richard Baker (North East Scotland) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what its assessment is of Alcohol and Violence among Young Male Offenders in Scotland (1979-2009), published in January 2009 by William McKinlay, governor of HMP Barlinnie.

Kenny MacAskill: I have asked Mike Ewart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

  SPS considers the report to be sound research which highlights a strong link between alcohol consumption and violent crime among young offenders in Scotland. The study has shown a dramatic change in alcohol use among cohorts of young offenders over three surveys conducted since 1979. The qualitative interviews conducted in 2008 also shed light on young people’s perspectives on intoxication and alcohol’s disinhibiting effect in perpetrating violence. Many of the presenting issues of this group of young men appear to be culturally conditioned and peer influenced and SPS continues to work with partner agencies in the community to support the maintenance of appropriate behavioural change, responsible use of alcohol and desistance from criminal activities and violent acts on release from custody.

Young Offenders

Richard Baker (North East Scotland) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the finding in Alcohol and Violence among Young Male Offenders in Scotland (1979-2009), published in January 2009, that price was not a major constraint on alcohol consumption among these young offenders, what its assessment is of this finding and what action it intends to take.

Mr Kenny MacAskill: The research referred to aims to develop understanding of the use of alcohol and violence among male young offenders in Scotland. This is a very specific remit and should not be taken to be representative of the population as a whole. We note the report with interest.

  Taking a wider population approach, our document Changing Scotland’s Relationship with Alcohol: A Framework for Action (Bib. number 47805) sets out a package of measures to rebalance Scotland’s relationship with alcohol. Some actions are specific legislative measures designed to effect change in the short term and others focus on creating cultural change over the longer term. The price of alcohol needs to form part of this package as there is strong evidence to show that the consumption of alcohol is affected by price.

Young Offenders

Richard Baker (North East Scotland) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, in light of the findings in Alcohol and Violence among Young Male Offenders in Scotland (1979-2009), published in January 2009, that prisoners questioned felt that increasing the prices of alcohol products would have little positive impact on their behaviour and that this policy might impact more strongly and negatively on law-abiding consumers, what its assessment is of these findings and what action it intends to take.

Mr Kenny MacAskill: Our document Changing Scotland’s Relationship with Alcohol: A Framework for Action (Bib. number 47805) sets out a package of measures to rebalance Scotland’s relationship with alcohol. Some actions are specific legislative measures designed to effect change in the short term and others focus on creating cultural change over the longer term. The price of alcohol needs to form part of this package as there is strong evidence to show that the consumption of alcohol is affected by price.

  In relation to crime harms, research carried out by the School of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield shows that these are estimated to reduce as the price of alcohol is increased, and that the section of the population that is most likely to be affected is 11-18 year olds as they are disproportionately involved in alcohol-related crime.